STILTS-TLOOP(1)

📦
version 3.5.4 · 5 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💫 stilts-tloop(1) — the Stilts commands era 💫

okay bestie, gather round, because stilts-tloop(1) is about to be your new fave. it's a lil command that makes a whole table out of a loop variable. yes, like a for loop. but table. iconic. ✨

🎀 NAME 🎀

stilts-tloop — generates a single-column table from a loop variable.

that's it. that's the whole job. and it ate. 💅

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

stilts tloop [ocmd=<cmds>]
             [omode=out|meta|stats|count|checksum|cgi|discard|topcat|samp|tosql|gui]
             [out=<out-table>] [ofmt=<out-format>] [colname=<value>]
             [start=<float-value>] [end=<float-value>] [step=<float-
             value>] [forcefloat=true|false]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so what tloop does is it generates a one-column table, and the values in that column are effectively populated from a for loop — like, start, end, step, the whole trio. 🔁

and honestly? lowkey useful just as it is. but the real main character energy is when you postprocess it with ocmd parameters to add more columns and stuff. suddenly it's a whole table. obsessed. 😭💖

✨ OPTIONS ✨

okay this is the part where you actually pay attention, bestie. every single one matters.

  • ocmd=<cmds> — says what processing to do on the output table, after all the other processing has already happened. the value is one or more of the filter commands described in SUN/256. if you're giving more than one, separate them with semicolon characters (";"). you can also repeat this parameter multiple times on the same command line to build up a list of processing steps — and the sequence of commands you give in that way is literally the processing pipeline that gets performed on the table. 🛠️

also! commands can be supplied in an external file instead, by using the indirection character '@'. so a value of "@filename" makes the file filename get read for a list of filter commands to execute. the commands in that file can be separated by newline characters and/or semicolons, and lines that are blank or that start with a '#' character are ignored. and a backslash character '\fR' at the end of a line joins it with the following line. no cap. 🤝

  • omode=out|meta|stats|count|checksum|cgi|discard|topcat|samp|tosql|gui — the mode the result table gets output in. default is out, which means the result gets written as a new table to disk or wherever, as decided by the out and ofmt parameters. but there are other possibilities too, and they correspond to other uses a table can be put to besides just outputting it — like displaying metadata, calculating statistics, or populating a table in an SQL database. heads up: for some values of this parameter you'll need additional parameters (<mode-args>) to pin down the exact behaviour. 👑

the possible values are:

  • out
  • meta
  • stats
  • count
  • checksum
  • cgi
  • discard
  • topcat
  • samp
  • tosql
  • gui

use the help=omode flag or see SUN/256 for more info. iykyk. 📖

  • out=<out-table> — where the output table goes. usually that's a filename to write to. but if it equals the special value "-" (which is the default), the output table gets written to standard output. 🖨️
bestie, important: you must only give this parameter if omode has its default value of "out".
  • ofmt=<out-format> — says what format the output table gets written in (one of the ones in SUN/256 — matching is case-insensitive and you can use just the first few letters). if it has the special value "(auto)" (the default), the output filename gets examined to try and guess what sort of file is required, usually by looking at the extension. and if it's not obvious from the filename what output format is intended? an error will result. 💀
same rule as above, fr fr: this parameter must only be given if omode has its default value of "out".
  • colname=<value> — gives the name of the single column produced by this command. name your baby. 🍼
  • start=<float-value> — the starting value of the loop variable. this will be the value in the first row of the table. 🏁
  • end=<float-value> — the value which the loop variable will not exceed. and "exceeding" is meant in the positive or negative sense according to the sense of the step parameter — as usual for a for-type loop. so don't come for the semantics, it knows what it's doing. 🚦
  • step=<float-value> — the amount by which the loop variable gets incremented at each iteration, i.e. each table row. 📈
  • forcefloat=true|false — affects the data type of the loop variable column. if true, the column is always floating point. if false, and if all the other parameters are of integer type, then the column will be an integer column. 🧮

🔍 SEE ALSO 🔍

if the package stilts-doc is installed, the full documentation SUN/256 is available in HTML format:

file:///usr/share/doc/stilts/sun256/index.html

📦 VERSION 📦

STILTS version 3.5.4-debian

this is the Debian version of Stilts, which lack the support of some file formats and network protocols. for differences see:

file:///usr/share/doc/stilts/README.Debian

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Mark Taylor (Bristol University)

and that's the whole page, bestie. we did it. slay. this lil manual page is from Mar 2017, and the version floating around down here is STILTS version 3.5.4-debian — the Debian one, which lack the support of some file formats and network protocols (for the differences, peep file:///usr/share/doc/stilts/README.Debian, as ever 🫶). thanks for reading, now go make a one-column table and feel powerful. 💖✨🎀🦋🌈

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